For days, President Trump insisted that he would accept nothing less than full ownership of Greenland. He dismissed concerns that his demands were risking the disintegration of the primary Western military alliance, deriding it as impotent anyway without the United States. And he threatened economic war on anyone who tried to stop him.
Then he took it all back.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s dizzying approach to foreign policy was on full display in the thin air of the Swiss Alps. Just hours after using a keynote speech in Davos, Switzerland, to insult European leaders and demand control of Greenland, he declared himself satisfied with a framework of a deal on the Danish territory that was so vague he could not say whether he would actually own the island.
His threats of tariffs against Greenland’s defenders quickly vanished. After questioning the value of NATO, he declared that its leader, Mark Rutte — with whom he negotiated over Greenland — was “doing a fantastic job.”
“We’re getting everything we want,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox Business from Davos on Thursday, before adding only a couple breaths later that the deal was still being negotiated.
The volatility in Mr. Trump’s approach to foreign policy is a sign of just how emboldened he feels a year into his second term. He transformed a forum that epitomizes the Western establishment and the rules-based order it created into a stage for his unconstrained power to overturn the values it stands for, if he so chooses.
He has long spoken of his unpredictability as one of his strengths, saying there is a method to the madness that helps him win deals in ways that the tired routines of traditional diplomacy do not. His allies point to Gaza, Venezuela, Iran, Panama and other places — and to trade concessions by nations around the globe — as evidence that his techniques pay dividends.
But his whipsaw approach has also led Europeans to question the reliability of the United States and whether the world has moved on from post-World War II structures.
“Everybody’s trying to figure out, you know, what is it that — what does the president really want?” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said when asked what European leaders had wanted to know from her in Davos. “What’s his intentions with Greenland; what are his intentions with NATO?”
His sudden announcement on Wednesday that he would not follow through on a threat to impose tariffs on countries that opposed his plans to take over Greenland sent heads spinning. But it also felt familiar — he has canceled, suspended or reduced tariffs against dozens of countries, in many cases after winning concessions that were less than he had demanded.
Mr. Trump’s aides often argue that his use of tariffs is an effective negotiating tactic. After his meeting with Mr. Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump celebrated the framework on Greenland “as a good deal for everybody.”
But his announcement also followed a pattern in which he claims victory in a negotiation before major details have been settled. When asked if the framework would include U.S. ownership of Greenland, Mr. Trump paused. “It’s a long-term deal,” he added, without providing specifics.
A senior Danish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said, “There have been no direct discussions between Denmark and the U.S. about the possibility of granting the U.S. sovereign parcels of land.”
With Mr. Trump riding high after the dramatic U.S. military raid this month that seized Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, many Davos attendees knew there could be sparks from the president’s speech on Wednesday.
The vague threats and insults that followed were still on many minds on Thursday.
Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, stepped onto the same stage where Mr. Trump had a day before questioned the value of NATO and had framed Greenland as a debt that needed to be paid to the United States.
Mr. Merz used his speech to note how the United States was “radically reshaping its foreign and security policy.” He pointed to the dangers of the Trump administration’s might-makes-right approach, unburdened by many postwar Western values.
“The United States’ global pole position is being challenged,” Mr. Merz said. “We have entered a time of great-power politics. As we forge ahead, we must never forget one thing: A world where only power counts is a dangerous place — first for small states, then for the middle powers and, ultimately, for the great ones.”
He then implicitly chided Mr. Trump for his demeaning treatment of European allies.
“Democracies do not have subordinates,” Mr. Merz said. “They have allies, partners and trusted friends.”
The German leader’s comments echoed those of Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, who said on Tuesday that a world order dependent on superpowers like the United States was coming to an end. In a speech widely discussed by Davos attendees, he called the phase a “rupture.”
Mr. Trump responded by saying that Canada should be “grateful to us.”
The president’s unpredictability largely dominated a summit that in the past had amounted to a brainstorming session among financial and political elites. Attendees rearranged their meetings in order to see Mr. Trump speak. In years past, participants had been able to show up at the main auditorium only a few minutes before keynote addresses by presidents and prime ministers and find a seat.
This year, a full 90 minutes before the main event, hundreds of people jammed the entire ground floor of the enormous convention center.
“No pushing!” staff members said with increasing intensity as people shoved and maneuvered.
The presence of the president and his delegation brought tension to a gathering that usually features like-minded businessmen. When Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, delivered remarks at a dinner earlier in the week, he was heckled by former Vice President Al Gore, a prominent climate activist.
“It’s no secret that I think this administration’s energy policy is insane,” Mr. Gore said in a statement. “And at the end of his speech I reacted with how I felt, and so did several others.”
“Thankfully, we didn’t come to Davos for Al Gore’s praise,” Mr. Lutnick said on Thursday on social media.
In Mr. Trump’s volatility, there is also the chance that those on the receiving end will emerge better than they had expected.
Some Europeans told current and former U.S. officials at Davos that they were leaving the event feeling better than when they had entered, after Mr. Trump lifted his imminent threat of tariffs.
But before leaving on Thursday, Mr. Trump again raised the possibility of pivoting.
He said that European nations that had sold off U.S. bonds could face his wrath.
“If they do, they do, but you know, if that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part,” Mr. Trump said. “And we have all the cards.”
Peter S. Goodman and Jim Tankersley contributed reporting.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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